US to send 3,000 troops to Ebola-hit Liberia

America said on Tuesday that it would send 3,000 US troops to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which President Barack Obama called "a potential threat to global security".

Following criticism by aid agencies that the international response had so far been “lethally inadequate”, Washington said it would despatch the soldiers to Liberia, the worst-affected of the countries so far hit by Ebola.

The mission, led by a US general, is the biggest US deployment to Africa since the ill-fated humanitarian mission to Somalia in 1993. It will help provide logistical support to a country whose health service has effectively been destroyed by the outbreak, with hundreds of doctors and health workers infected.

"If the outbreak is not stopped now we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected with profound political and economic and security implications for all of us," Mr Obama said.

One of the mission’s priorities will be building 17 new 100-bed health care facilities, while another will be training 500 new health workers a week to help deal with infected patients.